


Feral

by unknownlifeform



Series: Mako green and Dust gold [4]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, Non Consensual Daemon Touching, Pre-Canon, Swearing, i mean it's reno what do you expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25015282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknownlifeform/pseuds/unknownlifeform
Summary: Turks were known to be professionals. Reno was a professional. He was also, however, a right bastard. Just like his daemon; they may look cute, but they were not to be crossed.
Series: Mako green and Dust gold [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801477
Kudos: 40





	Feral

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't expect to have so much to write about Reno in this au but there it is. Tagged this fic as both OG and Remake because most of what happens is pre-canon and it could honestly work with either game

Shinra picked Reno off the streets when he was seventeen, like some stray dog.

To be honest, he didn't really care about Shinra. He would have probably never even considered becoming a Turk hadn't the job been offered to him.

As it was, he was sitting in a cell, a list of crimes the length of a dictionary on his head, and a Wutai looking man telling Reno he had some impressive skills and Shinra would love for him to become one of them. Either he could accept, or he could be sent on trial, and probably locked in jail for a decade or two.

How could he refuse such a kind offer. The job didn't sound too bad, and gave him enough money for a topside flat and three meals a day.

The training they put him through, that was pure torture. Literally. Apparently Shinra wanted to make absolutely sure no one would spill company secrets.

Being tied up to a chair and beaten up wasn't exactly his ideal Friday afternoon. In a way, nothing stopped Reno from just giving in and telling his pretend captor what he wanted to hear. He really, really did not care about Shinra. There was not a single reason he could think of for the company to deserve that kind of loyalty from him.

But Reno was fueled by nothing if not _spite_. He had seen the distaste in that Veld guy's eyes as he looked him over. No doubt he would have thrown Reno in jail without a second thought hadn't that Tseng said he wanted to keep him. Veld probably expected Reno to fail basic training.

There was no better motivator than that for Reno to grit his teeth and take his beating. Nothing pissed him off more than someone thinking he was just another pathetic slum rat not worth being looked at twice.

"Are you going to tell me what I want?" the torturer asked. He was masked, the only possible give away of his identity the weasel daemon on his shoulder.

Reno showed him his tongue.

"Suit yourself."

If neither Reno nor Aria reacted when they saw the man bend down, it was because neither of them had expected him to actually grab Aria and lift her up.

Reno gasped for air. The man's grasp wasn't enough to restrict their breathing, but it still made Reno feel like he was being choked. His skin crawled with the sensation of someone else's hand on his daemon.

"How about now?" the bastard said, and just to make things worse, he pinched Aria's ear and pulled.

That hurt like hell, but it wasn't just the pain of it. It was the utter, gut deep violation of that touch. It was making panic build in Reno's chest.

He snarled at the man. "I'll break all your teeth with a crowbar and then shove it all the way up your ass!"

Aria squirmed, trying to break free, and managed to sink her teeth in the man's arm. He let her go with a curse, and she landed on her feet, hissing, tail raised in warning. If he tried to touch her again, she'd make him _regret_ it.

The man examined his arm with a pained hiss. "Are you going to tell me you two have fucking rabies now?"

Reno smiled at him, all teeth.

***

Reno was pretty good at reading people's daemon. He had had to learn, because sometimes knowing whether someone was dangerous at a first glance could make a lot of difference.

Turks, on average, had somewhat unassuming daemons. A dog here, a lizard there, maybe even a bug. Nothing noticeable or too flashy. For the most part, daemons that no one would really glance twice at. Which was good, because they were the covert affairs operations, and it would be bad if they were too easily recognizable.

There were a few exceptions here and there, of course. Reno had no idea what kind of snake it was that Tseng had, but it was impressive. He had never seen her fully stretched out, usually she just curled up around her human's neck and shoulders like a slithery, scaly scarf. However, Reno was fairly sure she had to be as long as he was tall, at least.

Reno knew he was reckless, but he was also not a complete idiot. He knew when it was better not to cross someone, and he did not want to get on Tseng's bad side. Reno would have guessed Tseng had to be just a little older than him, but he had been in the business a long time already. He probably knew twenty different ways to make Reno's body disappear.

Also, maybe Reno was the slightest bit thankful for Tseng giving him the chance of doing something with his life that was not rotting in jail. Maybe.

Now, that didn't mean the other Turks had entirely harmless, cute little daemons. Unassuming did not mean safe.

And what better example than Aria herself. If anyone every noticed her, it was to make a comment on what kind of cheap, gross person Reno had to be to have a skunk daemon. They never thought of her sharp little teeth, her claws, and of course her nasty little secret move. Or at least expected them to have enough dignity for Aria to never actually _spray_ someone.

Reno, for his part, found dignity to be vastly overrated at times.

***

After nearly a year, somehow Reno hadn't been fired yet. Not that he'd been planning to, especially because he had the feeling for Turks being fired was a very literal process. He just hadn't really expected himself to fit in. He still resented the paperwork, and no amount of money in the world would be enough for him to respect dresscode, but otherwise he was actually pretty good at being a Turk.

Good enough all his violations only got him a slap on the wrist every once in a while.

Then one day Veld decided to give him a partner. Probably to make sure Reno behaved. It wasn't a secret Veld only tolerated him because he got the work done.

Rude looked exactly like the kind of boring man Veld would like. Perfectly shaved hair, perfectly fixed suit and tie. He looked like a bouncer. He looked like he had never broken a single rule in his whole life. Honestly, _boring_.

Which was a definite contrast with his daemon, because _those_ little beasties were nasty, or so Reno had heard. Aggressive little fuckers.

And yet no matter how much Reno prodded at him, Rude barely reacted to his antics. Did he even have emotions?

"So what's her name, _partner?"_ Reno said, drawling out the last word just to be a brat. They were sitting in their shared office, Rude doing paperwork and Reno tired of playing games on his PHS.

"Whose name?"

"Hers. Your daemon's."

Rude turned to glare at Reno, or at least Reno supposed he was. It was a little hard to tell with the shades.

"I mean, you know what my daemon is called," Reno said. "And we're partners, right? We should tell each other things. I'm not asking you about your whole life story here, this is just courtesy."

Most Turks didn't go around telling their daemon's name. They all liked to keep their own business their own, which Reno could understand. He was sort of an exception, in that he didn't keep Aria's name a secret at all. Didn't see the point.

Rude seemed to be about to tell him off, but then caved. "Honey."

"What?"

"Her name. Honey."

Reno blinked. "Wait, for real? Is that her real name?" Because Rude most likely was not going by his real name, that or his parents had the worst naming sense in the world. Surely he had to be giving Reno a nickname for his daemon too, because there was absolutely _no way_.

Rude didn't answer.

"You have a honey badger daemon and she's named _Honey?"_

Three weeks after being put to work together, Reno first saw Rude beat the shit out of someone, and that point he felt he understood better the whole honey badger thing. That man had to have enough repressed anger for the whole Department. Either that, or he was just a fucking beast.

Ifrit's balls, Reno almost felt sorry for the poor bastards Rude had plummeted.

***

"Hey. Come look at this."

Reno looked up from the drawer he was raiding, walking over to the room Rude was in. "Did you find something?"

"Nothing important, no."

"The hell Rude? We're here to find some dirt on this guy, not fuck around."

Rude was kneeling on the ground, in front of some kind of cage. Not too strange, the man whose house they'd been told to search seemed to have a whole collection of exotic pets. Reno had already been screamed at by a parrot. He had always thought topside rich people were weirdos, and this was just further confirmation.

"I just thought you'd be happy to see some family," Rude said.

"What are you-" Reno trailed off when he heard some familiar sounding hisses coming from the cage. Bypassing Rude, he found himself staring down at some extremely pissed off skunks.

He knelt down, watching as they stomped their feet at him. One was bigger, and then there were two smaller ones. A mother and a couple babies, if he had to guess.

Aria sneaked around him, tilting her head curiously at the animals. They didn't really look exactly like her, but they were similar enough. The little family stopped their noises for a moment, seeing Aria, but then started stomping harder.

"Didn't know you could keep them as pets," Rude said.

"They're not really tame," Reno said, wiggling his fingers at them. One of the little ones hissed at him. Cutie. "You gotta take the scent glands out, or they'll stink up the whole place. And even then, they're adorable, but they can be little shits."

Rude hummed. "Sounds familiar."

"Aw, partner, you think I'm adorable?"

"I think you're a little shit."

Reno snickered. "Alright, enough gawking. We have some work to do before the bastard comes back home."

***

Reno didn't like SOLDIERs. Self-righteous bastards. They thought they were doing some kind of moral good by serving Shinra as glorified human weapons. Always turned their noses up at Turks, acting like they were so much better just because they left bodies on battlefields and not down the sewers.

Normally, if they were on a mission together, Turks and SOLDIERs tended to ignore each other. They would collaborate if necessary, and then each go their merry way. They didn't try to _socialize_.

This new SOLDIER was not acting that way, and it was freaking Reno out.

Flying a First Class around was normal work. Reno hadn't thought much about it when he and Rude had been told to assist Hewley on a mission. They'd done it before, he wasn't too bad to work with. But apparently now Hewley came with a pet Second Class, a kid with an oversized sword who still couldn't grow his beard properly, and he was the most obnoxiously friendly person Reno had ever met.

He would have thought at least with the mission over the Second Class would have been tired, dragged his feet around waiting for the chopper to be ready. Nope. Zack Fair apparently ran on infinite energy. Was this kid on a sugar rush? Cocaine, maybe?

And most importantly, why was he so hell bent on befriending Reno?

Was this how Reno came off to others when he decided he was going to be obnoxiously friendly?

Nah, he was much more charming.

Even harder than ignoring Zack was ignoring his daemon. Da- Da-something, Reno had already forgotten her name. She kept jumping around and wagging her tail hard enough Reno almost expected to see it fall off. She was determined on playing with Aria, completely uncaring of Aria's tail raising dangerously.

"Are those tattoos on your face? What do they mean?" Zack asked, with an expression that was far too open and eager for a SOLDIER. Childish, almost. They should put age limits or something for that job, Reno thought. Did they just accept anyone as long as they had settled?

"They mean to mind your own business," Reno snapped.

"Please? Tell me?"

Why wasn't he bothering Rude instead? Actually, why wasn't he just sticking to his mentor? Was Hewley enjoying a break from his overexcitable pupil?

Zack's daemon got a bit too close to Aria, and that was it. Aria was done. She turned around, and sprayed.

"What the fuck-!"

Zack covered his face with his hand, his daemon jumping away with a whine.

That seemed to do the trick and make Zack ran back to Hewley with his tail between his legs. The First Class seemed to be amused, if trying quite hard not to be too close to Zack's daemon.

***

"You're fucking heavy, you know that?" Reno grunted.

Rude mumbled something that didn't really sound like words. He was awake enough to drag his feet along, but he was still leaning his weight almost entirely on Reno.

Reno glanced behind, making sure no one was after them. They had busted the little AVALANCHE lair they'd been told to get rid of, but they weren't doing good. Rude had been hit with some kind of drug, and was completely out of it.

Reno adjusted Rude's arm around his shoulders. Rude would have to offer him like, five drinks after this. Reno was never carrying him around again. The man was made of fucking bricks.

He hoped the drug they'd hit him with wasn't anything dangerous. Technically, Honey was the one who had been hit, and now she stumbled around, Aria steering her. Honey badgers were supposed to be resistant to poisons and shit, right? Daemons didn't work exactly like the animals they resembled, but Rude and Honey would probably be fine, they just needed to work this shit out of their systems.

"There we are," Reno said. They hadn't been given a chopper for the mission, they had to make their way out of there by car.

Not the best escape vehicle, but it would do. Easy for Reno to drive on his own.

Reno deposited Rude in the passenger's seat with a grunt. "You with me, partner?"

Rude's head lolled around. "Yeah," he slurred.

Well, at least he understood what Reno was saying. "Great. Hold on now, we just need to get-"

"Reno!"

Reno turned around, finding Aria looking up at him. "What?"

"What do we do with Honey?"

Reno almost asked her what she meant, before realizing the problem. Honey had been walking, but she didn't seem to be coherent enough to realize she had to jump in the car. Aria was not strong enough to lift her.

Reno glanced at Rude, who didn't seem to have noticed the problem, and then back at Honey. Well. Fuck.

"Please don't bite my fingers off," Reno said, and bent down to lift Honey.

Both her and Rude made a sharp noise at that, but at least Honey didn't attack Reno. He could thank the drugs for that, the girl was grumpy as fuck most of the time. He moved as fast as possible, dropping her in Rude's lap. Which was in itself quite the effort, she was way heavier than she looked. No wonder Rude was so jacked.

The uncovered tips of Reno's fingers sort of tingled afterwards. It didn't feel entirely right to have touched Honey without permission.

Shaking his head, he went to sit in the driver's seat. Turks were trained to know someone might touch their daemons. Reno hadn't really had a lot of choice there. Desperate times and all. It was that, or leaving both Honey and Rude there.

He still hoped Rude wouldn't remember it later.

***

"I'm sorry, you want me to _what?_ " Reno asked. His voice might have been a little louder than appropriate, but he felt it was pretty justified.

Tseng didn't seem particularly fazed by Reno's outburst. "I said, I want you to become my second."

_"Why?"_

"You've been a member of the Turks for years-"

Not _that many_ years. Granted, the job had a pretty significant mortality rate, but there were still others who'd been in the game much longer than him.

"-you are dedicated to the job-"

Nope, Reno just really liked to zap people, and being a Turk meant he got paid a fuckton of money to do just that. Honestly, there was very little Reno wouldn't do for the salary he got, he had discovered.

"-and you are one of the best agents I have, both in terms of your fighting skills and of your track record."

...hell yeah he was.

"Considering all those factors, you are the best choice I have. Despite your chronic inability of following dresscode."

"Why not ask Rude, then? He's got all that, and he wears ties."

Tseng shook his head. "Rude is an excellent Turk, but at times he lacks a certain... initiative. Which you have plenty of."

"You're promoting me because I break rules?"

"I'm promoting you because of your quick thinking and improvisational skills."

So because he broke rules.

That was just unreal. There were plenty of people who had joined the Turks because they wanted to make a difference, who thought they were doing the right thing, or at least helping a right cause. Reno wasn't like that. He was loyal to Shinra because they paid well, and because by now he had done so much dirty work for them he didn't feel he could drop out anymore.

Now Tseng – and Reno didn't know how Tseng had become a Turk, but he knew he was one of the really driven ones – having freshly been promoted to leader, wanted Reno as second in command. Pros and cons of the position aside, Reno was just fucking baffled as to why Tseng would pick _him_ of all people.

"You do realize that if something happens to you I inherit the position? You sure you want me to be in charge?" Reno asked.

"I'm not planning on retiring anytime soon. And you could always step down and give someone else the position."

Reno shook his head. "You're not giving me the option of saying no, are you?"

Tseng smiled. "I'm not."

When Reno had first met Tseng, you could still guess Tseng was, well, human. He had already been a cold, calculating bastard, but he still let his emotions show at times.

Now, Reno was fairly Tseng had a heart, somewhere, because they'd been working side by side for years, but Tseng had become a true pro at hiding it. To anyone else, the new leader of the Turks would look as cold blooded and venomous as his daemon, currently curled on the large desk.

Having Reno as a second would probably conflict with the image Tseng was trying to project. He was unprofessional and brash and loud, the polar opposite of Tseng.

Then again, if there was a thing Reno had learnt about the man, it was that Tseng was good at what he did. Even if he still didn't quite understand what was Tseng thinking, Reno was confident he had a plan of some kind.

"You're dismissed for now. Tomorrow you'll find some files detailing your new duties. Nothing too long, don't worry, I won't force you to read too much."

"Sure, boss," Reno said.

Him. Second in command of the Turks. He'd been told pretty much his whole life that one day he'd end up in jail or maybe dead in a ditch. He would have never dreamt that he'd one day be given an authority position of any kind in a Shinra division.

He was taking the whole Department out for drinks.

Tseng's daemon flicked her tongue at Reno while he left. He still had no idea what her name was, and not for lack of trying. Tseng was one of those people who thought it was better for a Turk to not give anyone personal information, and had managed to completely hide his daemon's name from anyone.

Now Reno would just try twice as hard to find out. It was his second in command duty, after all, to show his boss that he was good at discovering secrets.

***

"Think we'll find him?" Rude asked.

"We can only try," Reno replied. And hope Shinra wasn't going to have their heads if they did.

Who would even put a death order on Zack Fair? Like, seriously. Everyone loved that guy. The entire Turks Department had a soft spot for Zack, and their whole job was to be heartless dicks. Even Reno couldn't deny Zack had grown on him eventually. Even _Tseng_ cared about the guy.

Reno moved his leg, feeling that Aria had started to chew on his pants. "Stop that."

Aria curled up at his feet. Chewing things was a sort of nervous tick for her. One she tended to hide, but not because people found it inappropriate when a daemon acted too much like an actual animal. She just hated to show weakness.

She really had to be high strung to do it while they were flying. She had also grown attached to Zack, despite their stinky start. And that was saying something, because Aria didn't make a lot of friends. Really, the only other daemon she was truly friends with was Honey.

Reno turned the chopper to the left, away from the cities in the area. A SOLDIER should be able to survive in the wilderness, and he hoped Zack was smart enough to know he had to keep away from civilization.

If they didn't find him, Zack would die. If they did find him, they might be the ones to die, once Shinra found out. Just perfect.

***

Reno should be asleep, probably, but his brain refused to turn off.

He could get up. Grab some booze. Ignore the warnings about mixing painkillers and alcohol and get drunk off his ass.

He just didn't feel like moving. Adrenaline had kept him going, but now he was starting to crash down. Even the painkillers couldn't quite keep all the aches from his wounds away. Three cracked ribs, a sprained wrist, two broken toes, and more cuts, bruises and burns than the doctor had bothered to count. They'd fixed him up a little with Materia, but that could only do so much.

"We should have said no," Aria said, lying against his side.

"What good would it have done?"

The President had said do it, and so they had to. That was their job. He said jump, you asked how high. He said kill that guy for me, you made sure no one would ever find the body. He said drop a Plate, you dropped a fucking Plate.

Reno had to say, he was glad the bastard was dead. Not that Rufus had, like, morals, or anything like that, but at least he had a certain charm his old man hadn't. He was willing to get his own hands dirty, if it came down to it, and Reno could appreciate that in an employer.

Even if Reno had refused the job, the order would have just moved to Rude, and if he had said no as well, then maybe Tseng himself would have had to do it personally.

"I feel bad."

Reno huffed. "Look, how many others have we killed already?"

The truth was, neither of them had any idea.

"Never like this. We just put thousands of people to death like that."

"And so what? We were murderers already, and we are murderers now. We just upped the count real fast."

They both knew Reno was not really as convinced of what he was saying as he tried to make it sound.

Rufus had given him a metaphorical clap on the back, and said he could take a few days off to rest and recuperate. Good job with that Plate, here's some vacation time, heard Costa del Sol is amazing this time of the year.

Reno wondered what was Rude doing now. Babysitting the new recruit, probably. He'd been in good enough shape to work, he had to be showing Elena the ropes.

He wondered if Rude was feeling as shitty about what they'd done as he did.

Aria rubbed her head against his arm. Reno reached to her, and gently scratched her head, right behind her ears. She'd been grabbed many times through the years, but no one else had ever touched Aria with gentleness. Someone who did would be someone who thought Reno was someone to be cared for, to treat kindly.

No one who saw him thought that of him, and Reno did his best to keep it that way. He was not nice, or cute, or tame. All his life he'd been something wild and feral and unpredictable. That was how people saw him, and he was quite comfortable with it.

Nevermind that he very much felt like an obedient little lapdog right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Daemons featured:  
> Aria - striped skunk  
> Honey - honey badger  
> Tseng's daemon - king cobra  
> Zack's daemon (Dalia) - pitbull


End file.
